What we're looking for this month

Writers often ask us what we’re “looking for”. Excellent fiction, of course, but what does that mean? This page is designed to tell you. We’ll update it bi-monthly, so visit again.

What We’re Looking for This Month – June/July 2009

Romantic & Women’s Fiction

Next month at the national convention of the Romance Writers of America (RWA) in Washington, D.C., I’ll be presenting a workshop based on my new book The Fire in Fiction.

That has me thinking about romantic and women’s fiction. This month, instead of our usual list of story ideas, I’d like to tell you in a general way what I think works, and what I’m seeking, in this category.

When romantic novels sell big they go beyond genre. What does that mean? It means that while a novel may have a romantic story as its main narrative through line, it also gives us much more.

Extra plot layers, a strong sense of place, three-dimensional antagonists, secondary characters with their own stories—all these are important. So is a heroine whose world is large and whose heart opens to more than the hero.

It may be an issue, it may be a lost child, it may be a killer to be caught or a country to be saved…whatever the extra plot business, in successful women’s fiction it is something that matters deeply to the heroine.

On page 41 of the June issue of Romance Writers Report (RWR), there is an “Honor Roll” of RWA members whose novels have made best seller lists in the New York Times, Publishers Weekly or USA Today. The 137 authors on that list all are writing, in one way or another, the type of novel I’m describing.

If you enjoy those best selling authors, why not craft stories as big as theirs? Novels written on that level are what I’m looking for this month.

-Donald Maass